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Woodbury County board backs Grittenton Center CDBG application, approves housing-needs priorities
Summary
Board of Supervisors held a public hearing and approved a Community Development Block Grant application by the Grittenton Center, designating all six items on the county's housing needs assessment as high priority and authorizing submission of a $600,000 CDBG request.
The Woodbury County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday opened and closed a public hearing and approved a resolution authorizing a Community Development Block Grant application from the Grittenton Center that would request $600,000 for facility improvements.
Christina Agenpostpa, a representative of Grittenton Center, told the board the agency is proposing a renovation of its transitional therapeutic home, a youth emergency shelter originally built in the 1970s. "We will be requesting $600,000 for the Community Development Block Grant," Agenpostpa said, and told supervisors the full project estimate is about $1,400,000 with the remainder to be covered by donors, foundations and a State of Iowa safety-and-security grant for shelters.
The grant application requires the county to complete a Community Development and Housing Needs Assessment and to assign priority levels to six questions in that assessment. After a brief exchange about the assessment draft and where to sign the resolution, the board voted to mark all six questions as "high" priority for purposes of the application and approved the resolution that authorizes submission of the CDBG application and the county representative to sign the final documents.
Board action included a formal motion to open the public hearing, a motion to close the public hearing, a motion to approve the housing needs assessment draft with all six priorities marked high, and a motion to approve a resolution authorizing the Grittenton Center's CDBG application. Each of those motions passed unanimously, recorded as 5-0.
Christina Agenpostpa summarized needs the application addresses: the shelter's outdated physical design limits capacity and suitability for a younger client mix; statewide shelter beds have declined; and the county's Community Development plan identifies low-to-moderate-income housing needs the CDBG program is intended to address. Agenpostpa said the agency has gathered partner letters of support and planned to submit the application by the end of the month.
County staff and board members also noted an administrative detail in the draft resolution: an outdated fiscal officer name on the cover sheet that staff said would be corrected before final submission.
The board did not set conditions or additional funding commitments beyond authorizing the application and approving the assessment priorities. The application itself, if selected for funding, would require final contract and award processes that the board would consider separately if and when the grant is awarded.
